Kiso Road Day 2: Hiking the "dreaded" Torii Pass

Breakfast at Aoki was much less intimidating, but still very good.

They even played with Gus while we got our backpacks re-packed.

Seeing us off.

We went for a walk through Narai (with daylight) before starting on the next leg of our journey.

The main drag in Narai has several of these little wells. I don't know whether they've really been slaking the thirst of weary travelers for centuries, but they're still nice.

Not a real insect.

From Narai, we hiked over something called the Torii Pass to Yabuhara (薮原). The Smithsonian article refers to it as the "dreaded Torii Pass." He actually uses that same adjective in two different places, just to emphasize its dreadedness, I suppose. We had it built up in our minds to be a really big deal.

Craig shows his dread.

The eponymous Torii.

Gus, also filled with dread.

Gus knows  how to hike in style.

The hike really wasn't all that difficult. By the time we reached Yabuhara, though, I was tired of carrying the blue backpack, and I figured Craig wouldn't notice the extra weight. He claimed not to.

We caught the train from Yabuhara to Kiso-Fukushima, which is apparently the biggest town in the area. Lots of nice views of the river.

More guilt-inducing horse art.

In Kiso-Fukushima, we stayed at a minshuku called Murachiya (むらちや). In this region of Japan, doors were traditionally manufactured by hobbits. (That's where they were all going when they got on those boats at the end of the third movie.)

Dinner at Murachiya featured carp, among other things.

Settling in for the night.

Kiso Road Day 1: Testing the limits of Japanese hospitality

Shortly before coming to Japan, I read this article in Smithsonian Magazine. The writer and a friend (who happened to be an American fluent in Japanese) spent the better part of two weeks hiking along the Nakasendo (中山道), the road that connected Kyoto to Edo (now Tokyo) during the Edo period. Some of the towns along the way have been preserved to look roughly as they did back in the day (only with more souvenir shops), and are popular among Japanese tourists. Apparently autumn is the best time to make the trip; Gus was too small last year, but this year we felt up to the challenge.

Our definition of traveling light has expanded a bit, to include things like a collapsible plastic baby seat (the blue and white thing).

As well as a baby.

Gus likes the Shinkansen.

The first night, we went to a town called Narai (奈良井), where we stayed at a place called Aoki (あおき). We arrived just as it was getting dark, and Aoki was on the opposite side of the (quite small) town from the train station. As we were walking there, it got dark and we saw a small truck on the road. The driver rolled down the window and asked (in Japanese) if my husband was Mr. Craig. Apparently it had taken us so long to show up that they were getting concerned. The online listing described Aoki as a minshuku; a Japanese-style inn where you eat your meals in a shared dining room with other guests. Actually, it was an old couple with a spare room that they rent out to visitors. They did make us some pretty awesome food, though, including trout that grandpa had caught in the river earlier that day, venison roast, and horse sashimi. Yes, we ate raw horse meat. It was pretty tasty.

The sliding doors of our bedroom were (ironically?) decorated with horses.

So, what did we do to test the limits of this nice old couple's hospitality? Baths are an important part of the minshuku experience, and they had a nice wooden one. Apparently wooden baths are a big thing, and this was big enough for all three of us. So we all took showers and climbed in the bathtub and relaxed for a while after dinner. Gus was having a good time sticking his face in the water and blowing bubbles, and found it really entertaining when I did the same. When we got out of the bathtub I looked back (to make sure we hadn't forgotten anyone) and discovered that, well, Gus had left them a present. The kind you don't usually leave in the bathtub. So we all took another shower, and I scrubbed Gus really thoroughly. Craig got the job of going out and explaining to this nice old couple that our son had just pooped in their bathtub.

The old man replied "kimochi ii desu ne!" (気持ちいいですね!). This literally means, "it's a good feeling", and we're not sure if he meant to say that Gus must have just felt so happy and relaxed that he couldn't help himself, or if he meant to imply that defecating in the bath just feels really good. We didn't ask.

Nara Food Festival

Before I write about the Nara food festival, I need to tell you about Kansai Scene and a festival we went to around last November. Kansai Scene is an English language magazine published in Japan for ex-pats. It is our go-to place when we're looking for events in the area. Last November I had read about a festival happening in Kyoto that sounded like the Japanese equivalent of a Renaissance Fair. There was going to be dudes in Samurai costume sword fighting, food booths, traditional entertainment like acrobatics, etc. I was really excited. Some of you may be wondering why we never made a blog post about it. The answer is it was pretty disappointing. There was traditional entertainment, however most of it was storytelling, not so good for non-Japanese speakers, there were two food booths offering chestnuts or sweets, an origami booth, and some traditional Japanese souvenir booths. There wasn't even the Japanese equivalent of the giant turkey legs you can get at a Ren Fair, the biggest reason for going to one in my opinion. There was also NO samurai stuff, at all. When we got home I re-read the Kansai Scene description to prove I hadn't gotten confused, it was just way off. So now we've learned to take what we read in the Kansai Scene with a giant grain of salt.

Now on to the Nara food festival which was described as a place where chefs from all over Japan would be showing off their cooking skills and food, both local and international, would be available. When I read about it I joked that there would be 5 booths. Craig checked on the Japanese webpage for the event and it looked like the description so we decided to give it a try. It was held in a beautiful, deer-free park in Nara. The park was also hosting a flower festival so there were tons of big, colorful flower arrangements planted through out. The food festival did, in fact, consist of more than 5 booths. I would say there were 20ish but I didn't see any chefs showing off their skills, unless you count guys pushing around frying fatty pieces of chicken with tongs. Suffice it to say, the festival was not what we expected but the weather was perfect, the park with all the flowers was beautiful, and we still got to enjoy some tasty food. Also, Nara doesn't have nearly the foreigner population, we were the only white people we saw all day so Gus, of course, was repeatedly told how cute he was.

Don't worry, the boy was slathered with sunscreen - repeatedly.

Do you see the little boy looking at Craig. Little kids were really curious about us. They'd often run up to get a look at Craig and I and then try to sneak a peak at Gus. We'd hear them say things in Japanese like "Americans?" and we'd respond in Japanese which they thought was just hilarious.

This is a tofu sandwich. The tofu is the "bread" and inside is ground pork, potatoes and ginger.

There was a lake with the ubiquitous koi fish and lots of turtles.

The food festival.

We just thought this was funny. Inside the big stall there was a grown-up sized toilet, sink, baby changing table, and little kid sized toilet and sink. It was totally full service.

Here I am with a more traditional Japanese snack, a roasted fish on a stick. It was apparently so strange to see a white person eating a fish on a stick that a Japanese woman asked if she could take my picture while I was eating it. I ate all of it except the bones and head, I'm apparently too American to look my food directly in the eye before taking a bite.

Mt Fuji

There is a saying in Japanese which, roughly translated, goes, “You're a fool to never hike Mt Fuji and you're a fool to do it twice.” Craig hiked it a couple of summers ago and, since neither one of us are fools, I hiked it a couple of weeks ago while Craig stayed home with Gus. I went with a friend from church, Rachel, and we approached our adventure a little differently from the way Craig did. We made our way to the 5th station on the Fujinomiya trail, the steepest and most accessible trail from Kansai, via train and bus on Friday afternoon. From there we hiked for a little over four hours to the 9th station. It was overcast and drizzly until about the last 15min and then it started to pour and hale so we covered the last 200m of the trail in record time.

Starting out at the 5th station.

People disappearing into the mist.

We spent the night at the 9th station to help get acclimated to the altitude. The accommodations are referred to as huts and they are about as primitive as the word implies. There are three hallways, each with about 6 bunks, so 12 total. Inside each bunk eight people sleep shoulder to shoulder. We were assigned pillows 4 and 5 in a top bunk. The bunks are only as wide as 8 pillows so there are hooks everywhere to hang backpacks and clothing. Since it had been pouring when we arrived all of our and our bunk mates wet clothes were hanging above us all night. Neither the bunks or the restroom (which smelled like cat litter) are gender segregated. Lights out is at 8pm and they are turned back on at 1am so people can get ready and hike up to the top in time for sunrise. As Rachel and I laid there, shoulder to shoulder, wondering if we were going to actually fall asleep at lights out, the woman to her right started to snore and the man two pillows down from me started to loudly mouth breathe. Despite all of that, I slept pretty soundly.

9th station hut hallway.

Our bunk with Rachel next to my pillow.

We had already decided we weren't going to try to reach the summit in the dark, the trail was just too steep and rocky and the weather to lousy to make it worth it. We headed out around 5:15am and made it to the top by about 7am. It turned out to be pretty clear between the clouds passing over us. I enjoyed a hot cup o' noodle, we snapped some pictures at the summit and then headed home.

Heading to the summit in my winter clothes.

The view when the clouds parted.

The top!

Looking down at the trail.

The outside of the 9th station, it was built into the mountain side.

When I used the vivid color setting on the camera the landscape made me think of Mars.

It took us roughly 6 hrs to climb and about 3.5 hrs to descend Mt Fuji. I believe Rachel and I tackled the mountain with our self respect intact. At no time did either of us stop, bend over, gasp for air and let off a string of expletives – this was not the case for everyone. I think the saying holds true – I'm glad I did it once but I don't ever intend to do it again.